Nine and one-half months I have lived in this house that is not mine… well long enough to birth a baby.

But what has been birthed here?

A lot of days go quiet, but she can’t seem to hold the ugly in forever and let’s it fly.  And I want to fly… away.

I told him the other night, “I do not love her”.

Are we supposed to say such things right out loud… we good Christian people?  But I need truth.  So I say what is true to me.

My own parents struggle with health and memory.  I see photos of orphaned children, hungry children… living in filth.  The world cries for help and I wonder, what earthly good am I doing here?  With one who will not accept help?  With one who is her own worst enemy?  With one, who even when her mind was clear… did not care for my presence?

Outside for relief… he and I tend the property left to wreck and ruin for too many years.  We fight the weeds and rodents.  We pull out dead plants, clear overgrowth, try to nurse the withering back to life.

… and these six smooth stones I lay next to this little plant.  Six stones… he and I and four grown sons… sons who make this world a better place.  That was a birthing process I can’t stop thanking God for… a blessing that overflows and never stops.  A process I could see a hope and a future in.  Easy to love.

But how do you love the hard?

Inside… she starts again.

If this were my mom or dad would it be easier, different?  I mean, I would walk across burning coals for them… because they have done that for me… and more.

But she… throws burning coals in my path… on purpose.

How could she live nine decades of life and not learn how to love for real, rather than for gain?  Not learn of mercy?  Forgiveness?  Grace?  How did she escape such lessons when they meet me with great regularity?  Did no one love her enough to say so?  To say no?  To teach her to seek God’s wisdom instead of her own?  Or would she not be taught?

So many questions.  Where is the answer?  Because I really do need.  Something.

Nine and one-half months.

The weeds grow.  And I am desperate to clear them away.

“He will not let your foot slip–he who watches over you will not slumber…” Psalm 121:3

I’ll hang on to that for now………..